Finding Your Fear

Everything we do, every day of our lives, stems from our natural (and sometimes unnatural) fears. Fear is the basis of functionality for life. How we deal with our fears is what separates man from beast and mature men from the unenlightened.

Suppose that you are out for a night on the town. You've got your best girl (or guy) on your arm and someone starts to show some over-the-top (and probably unwanted) attention to your mate. Jealousy often rears its ugly head and we blame the green-eyed monster for our possessive reaction but we should delve a little deeper into the cause of our anger and unease at the situation. Why do we get jealous? A secondary emotion, jealousy is triggered by a more sinister master - fear. The fear of losing something (or someone) precious to us against our will causes the reaction when someone else shows too much attention to our loved ones. Without that seed of fear, jealousy would never spring into the picture.

Imagine that you are crossing the street at a busy intersection. Caution, which we attribute to our intelligence and our ability to reason, prohibits most of us from just bolting into traffic, dodging one car after another. Once again, we are placing too much credit on the wrong instinct. What makes us cautious? Why do we look both ways before crossing the street or check the water depth in the pool before diving in head first? Our ability to reason isn't at the core of our desire to show caution. Once again, the culprit is fear; a deep-seated fear of injury to ourselves spawns our careful actions. Without the dark touch of fear, caution often goes to the wind.

Fear does so much for us. It helps to remind us to think before we act. It sparks a whole serious of emotions and instigates trains of rational thought that, we hope, keep us safe from harm and far from trouble. Horror movies and thrillers take full advantage of the power of fear. The adrenaline rush brought on by fear is big business in Hollywood and even this use of the most primal of emotions for profit has something to teach us. As time goes on and the terror genre gets deeper and darker, we learn that the more realistic the situation, the more intense the reaction of our fear. No longer are the movie monsters of our pasts sufficient to draw out the response of fear. Michael Myers may still elicit a shock when he pops up alive for the thousandth time but the fear reaction is subdued - there is no danger there. Now we reach to new heights to activate our response and intensify our experience. The movie monsters of today are serial killers and sadistic murderers and pictures of men and societies gone horribly wrong. Will these, too, one day lose their power over us?

Why is fear such a driving force in our lives? Why does it have so much power over us? Why is one simple primal instinct at the heart of everything we do? Think back on human history, long before the advent of advanced cultures. Mankind has three basic needs (simplified from earlier versions): food, shelter (the need for clothing is often included in the need for shelter), and companionship (including both the social and sex instincts of man). Yet even at the deepest roots of these most simple of necessities is the heavy hand of our fear. It is the fear of suffering in the elements that makes us seek shelter; the fear of starvation that sends us searching for food; the fear of loneliness and the end of our species that causes us to seek out others like us. Everything that we do, as individuals and as societies, can be traced back to the guiding force of our ever-present fears.

The trick is not to let our fears overwhelm us. Of course our fear is essential to our lives, if not it wouldn't have such power over us. We just have to remember that, though our baser fears sow the seeds for our thoughts, reactions, and emotions, they are not meant to control us. They serve their purpose most effectively if we let them ignite the flame of reason but not overpower it. Otherwise, we would be no better than the lower mammals, living on pure instinct and falling victim to the power of our fears.